Round Hill – Montego Bay, Jamaica
Every August the car drops us at reception, at the bottom of the hill, below the villas and above the beach. It’s a beautiful spot to arrive: the cottages climbing behind you, the water spread out below. And every year a familiar face is waiting to say “Welcome home.” The first year you take it as a nice line. By the fifth year you know they mean it.
Five years ago two of our dearest friends got married here. It was a second marriage for each of them, and it felt like much more than a wedding. It celebrated the lives each of them had lived before, and the joining of those two lives going forward, kids included. The kids are all friends of ours too. It was a celebration of life and how it can change on you in an instant in myriad ways. But the wedding was all just friends which made it very unique (for the couple AND the guests!).
Since then a smaller group of five couples has come back every year to celebrate them, and to celebrate whatever it is the rest of us have. Two couples come from Little Rock, us and the bride and groom. One comes from Houston, one from Fort Worth and one from Fayetteville. All of us went through the University of Arkansas at one time or another, and all of us have been friends for at least thirty-five years.
How we found each other is half the fun. Three of the guys were in the same pledge class of the same fraternity. Two knew each other from high school. I met them while visiting Fayetteville from Georgetown, and we became real friends later, in duck blinds and deer stands after college. Two of the girls have been friends in Little Rock since early childhood. The rest came together in other ways that are just as interesting. Every couple has its own story, and so does every friendship inside the group. It’s a very interesting group, drawn together in more ways than one.
The days are what you’d hope for. There’s warm water on the beach, the hillside villas over the bay, and an hour with nothing scheduled. But the thing that has become the thing is dinner in the bar with Kumar.
The bar is the less formal spot on the property, and somewhere along the way Kumar started setting a table there just for us. This year we ate dinner there every evening but one. The menu is wildly eclectic and eccentric, with just enough normal on it to keep everyone happy. What gets me every time is how well it’s cooked. The braised oxtail falls apart. The curried goat is deep and warm. The snapper is cooked exactly right. Even the burger is the burger you hoped for. It’s a treat every time you order, and it comes to the table as if you’re part of the family.
The best thing on that menu is the lobster curry, served the traditional way with all the fixings around it. If you order one dish, order that one.
It isn’t only Kumar. Everyone at Round Hill treats you like family, with the kind of welcome you can’t train into a staff. You either have it or you don’t, and they have it.
So, was it worth it, and for whom? Round Hill is not an inexpensive trip, and Jamaica in August asks something of you. But I’ve stayed at plenty of beautiful places where nobody knew my name by the second night. This is a place for a group that wants to come back. It rewards loyalty with a table in the bar, a server who knows your order and a familiar face who greets you like you’ve been away too long. We’ll be back. Every year possible.
And the group itself: the guys get along. The girls get along. The guys and the girls get along together. What a group.
En vino veritas,
Alex
